The Childhood Ideal

Culture was not a big part of my formative years. Our sainted mother attempted to remedy that by sitting my sister and me in front of the TV for Leonard Bernstein's "Young Peoples' Concerts". While the whole "The oboe is Peter. The bassoon is the Wolf, and they are talking to each other" never really superseded Elvis as my concept of great music, the thing I remember is my mother's admonishment, "See those kids in the audience. See how they pay attention and don't fidget, unlike you in church. You should be like that."

Had my mother been familiar with "Catcher in the Rye" or "Gossip Girl", she might not have presented Trust Fund Babies as my Childhood Ideal. Still, every generation has that Ideal toward which parents strive and children rebel.

Sadly, the current generation has set the bar impossibly high. A Jif peanut butter commercial shows a grade school boy heading for the door, backpack in place and lunch bag in hand, as his Mom appears, dressed corporate casual and running late for work herself. The lad had obviously arisen, made his bed, bathed, dressed, prepared his breakfast, packed his lunch, and gathered his books all by himself. I didn't do all that without prodding until I was in my 30s.

Mom inquires, "Do you have your lunch?" The boy proudly displays a brown paper bag and replies, "I left a surprise for you, Mom!"

She turns and finds an identical bag on the counter clearly labeled "Mom". Heart-warming music crescendos and the announcer intones something about how Jif is the peanut butter of love.

If this is the Childhood Ideal for the 21st century, today's youth will surely rebel in a horrific manner. After all, my generation rebelled with the excesses of the 60s when we failed to achieve non-fidgeting status in the concert hall and chose "Hound Dog" over "Peter and the Wolf". If today's parents demand self-sufficient kids who will make Mom's lunch because she's having a bad hair day, the current generation will develop frustrations that will have cataclysmic consequences.

We must lower our standards!